sneakyimp writes: The Antares rocket operated by Orbital Sciences Corporation exploded on launch due to a "catastrophic anomaly" after a flawless countdown. No injuries are reported and all personnel are accounted for. According to the audio stream hosted by local news affiliate WTVR's website, the Cygnus spacecraft contained classified crypto technology and efforts are being made to cordon off the wreckage are. Additionally interviews of personnel and witness reports are to be limited to appropriate government agencies so that an accident report can be generated. This accident is likely to have a detrimental effect on the stock price of Orbital Sciences Corp, traded on the NYSE. The Antares rocket's engines are based on old soviet designs from the 60s. While this is sure to be a blow to NASA due to the cost, it may well boost the fortunes of their chief competitor, SpaceX. Both companies were recently awarded resupply contracts by NASA.

An anonymous reader writes: Several seconds after lifting off on schedule at 6:22PM, and clearing its tower, the Cygnus Antares rocket slipped back, crashing into the launch facility and exploding. A large fireball consumed the vehicle and caused apparently significant damage to the facility.

concertina226 writes: A Norwegian man narrowly avoided being hit by a meteorite while skydiving and has captured the first ever video footage of a meteorite travelling through the air after its flame has gone out.

"I got the feeling that there was something, but I didn't register what was happening," Anders Helstrup of the Oslo Parachute Club. "When we stopped the film, we could clearly see something that looked like a stone. At first it crossed my mind that it had been packed into a parachute, but it's simply too big for that."

A geologist confirmed that a meteoroid had exploded about 20 kilometres above Helstrup and his fellow skydivers.

So far they have found one stone which has coloured patches that resembles a breccia, which is a common type of meteorite rock, but the Natural History Museum in Oslo has laughed at them.

Undeterred, Helstrup and his friends are continuing to search the area, which is quite difficult to search as it contains thick forest, scrub and marshes, so now they want to offer the international meteorite community a chance to help them out on their website.

retroworks writes: Telecom giants AT&T and Verizon Communications are lobbying states, one by one, to hang up the plain, old telephone system, what the industry now calls POTS--the copper-wired landline phone system whose reliability and reach made the U.S. a communications powerhouse for more than 100 years. Is landline obsolete, and should be immune from grandparents era social protection?

I took a look at Etsy and I do not see any plastic soap dishes yet. There are a few 3D printed things made from plastic, metals, and ceramics (blatant self promotion). Businesses like Shapeways and Ponoko are making high end 3D printing more accessible. Companies like Pololu and Sparkfun are making easer to build the tools. Businesses like and Nervous Systems are taking advantage of the sort of low hanging fruit type opportunities.

The 3D printing hype is a little optimistic in ways but there is more to the notion of small scale production than 3D printing. CNC machines are very main stream in industry and the cost is well within the reach of Middle America. The cost of automation is coming down and is much more accessible than it used to be.

I would also like to see a move away from big box stores. It would be nice for a change to be able to walk into a store (camera shop, hardware store, and other more or less specialty stores) and talk to some one that knows what they are talking about.

sumoinsanity writes: Schrödinger's cat is "probably" still in the bag as disclosed by the Washington Post. Perhaps it is both disturbing and reassuring as discussed here. The reassuring part is that PKI is still OK when done properly as the NSA desires to break it with Quantum Crypto. The disturbing bit is that it is perhaps just a matter of time before PKI succumbs and our private parts are out there for all to see:-|

Junaid Qadir writes: "An animated piece on an earthen goblet that belongs to 5000 years ago was found in Burnt City in Sistan-Baluchistan province, southeastern Iran.
On this ancient piece that can be called the first animation of the world, the artist has portrayed a goat that jumps toward a tree and eats its leaves."
And I went on to actually animate it in a gif here.

I do not know much about the new health care laws. Certainly, I have no idea what the costs are going to be. So, my question is how does this story,
Obamacare glitches give paper applications new life fit into the picture. It sounds a little like the health care program is not going to cost so much as the infrastructure and bureaucracy to support it.

From the link above:
"The Obama administration has been prepared for a crush of paper. Over the summer, it awarded a $1.2 billion contract to Serco, which says it expects to process 6.2 million paper applications in the health law’s first open enrollment period running through the end of March."

Lee_Dailey writes: Physicists have discovered a jewel-like geometric object that dramatically simplifies calculations of particle interactions and challenges the notion that space and time are fundamental components of reality.

“This is completely new and very much simpler than anything that has been done before,” said Andrew Hodges, a mathematical physicist at Oxford University who has been following the work.

deepdive writes: I have a basic question. What is the privacy/security health of the Linux kernel (and indeed other FOSS OS's) given all the recent stories about the NSA going in and deliberately subverting various parts of the privacy/security sub-systems. Basically, can one still sleep soundly thinking that the most recent latest/greatest ubuntu/opensuse/what-have-you distro she/he downloaded is still pretty safe. Or do people need to get a little worried and start burning some extra night oil over this?